Who doesn’t enjoy receiving a comment or two? And who doesn’t enjoy leaving a comment or two, knowing it makes a difference in the other person’s day to know that they’re not speaking into a silent vacuum?

And that, my friend, is the point of the Commentathon. Seven days to collective send out 1000 comments. Does that sound like a lofty goal? Perhaps. But I think we’re just the people to do it.

So here is how it works:

(1) Sign up begins today. Leave a message in the comments section saying you’d like to participate or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need a name, the url for your blog (if you don’t have a blog, just leave a name), and a comment goal for the week (for instance, if you think you can leave 5 comments a day, write down a goal of 35 comments for the week. You can always leave more comments than you put down as your goal. You can also spread it out and leave 10 comments one day and no comments the next day). Don’t be shy–if you can only leave 7 comments over the whole week, that’s fine too. Every comment takes us closer to that 1000 comment goal. People can sign up until June 17th.

(2) I will post a participant’s list with links to blogs, updated daily once the Commentathon begins to reflect your comment total. It will look something along the lines like this

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Melissa) Goal: 70 ___ (M) ___ (T) ___ (W) ___ (TH) ___ (F) ___ (SA) ___ (SUN) _____ (Total)

(3) Keep track of how many comments you leave from June 18th–June 24th (7 days–if you’ll be gone any of these days, use the 25th, 26th, or 27th as “make-up” days). This is how to tally your comments:

• Every comment you leave on another person’s blog* equal one point.
• Every time someone leaves a comment on your blog and you click over to their blog and return the favour by leaving a comment, you get two points.

So, for example, if you pledged that you would leave 10 comments/points a day, you could leave 6 comments on blogs you like to read or new blogs that you’ve found on the participant list. And you could return 2 comments for people who left comments on your blog, making 10 comments/points total for the day (6+2+2=10). So…yes, I ask for a comment total, but it’s really a “points” total since there are two types of comments you can leave: new ones (one point) and return ones (two points).

Keep track during the day on a scrap of paper and email me (thetowncriers@gmail.com) a total at the end of the day each day (this is obviously done on an honour system). I will update your total and how close we are collectively to leaving 1000 comments in a single week daily.

(4) The highest commentors will be announced and awarded on the 29th during the blog roundup. Collectively, we will make the world feel like a better place for at least a week by spreading the love around and letting people know that people are reading their words.

So sign up by leaving the necessary information in the comments section or sending me an email. You don’t need a blog to participate, but if you’ve been considering starting one, this is a great opportunity for people to find your new blog. And then start keeping track of your comments on the 18th…

And don’t forget to send me your secret odes for Secret Ode Day (posting June 21st)…

* Infertility and pregnancy loss is a simplistic name that encompasses any blog related to infertility, treatments, living child-free, adoption, GBLT assisted reproduction, donor gametes, secondary infertility, pregnancy loss, pregnancy-after-infertility, and parenting-after-infertility
(as well as any other categories I inadvertently left off the list).

I know this will probably come as a shock to you, but Josh isn’t the first person I dated. He isn’t even the fourth or fifth or sixth person I dated. He’s like…somewhere uncountable if we’re going to add people like the man who only got one date because he had a running monologue with himself through the meal (I’m not being facetious. I would say something and the guy would look at his plate and say, “well, Mike, how do you feel about that? She’s really pretty, but she sounds like a risk taker) or Joe (G-d bless the Joes of this world who show up for a blind date holding a bouquet of carnations and talk for two straight hours about his favourite television shows after you’ve told him that you don’t own a television set).

The point is that technically, Jon was my first choice. He was my first real boyfriend. And while he’s probably a really nice guy and currently a neurosurgeon, I’m pretty glad that it didn’t work out between us. I mean, while it probably would have been advantageous for my fertility to start trying to conceive back at age 13, I’m not sure Jon and I would have been the best match through adulthood. And I’m glad my second, third, and fourth choices didn’t work because while–again–they were nice guys and all, I really believe that Josh is the person I was meant to marry. And not in that fate sense of the word when I say “meant.” I mean that we complement each other perfectly. He is the missing piece that makes me more me. And I am lucky that we found each other and he is irreplaceable in my heart. While I certainly felt sad during other breakups, it is nothing compared to the pain I would feel if I ever lost Josh. Because our lives are so deeply and profoundly entwined that to lose him would mean that I lose a piece of myself.

And that is why I never look at leaving one path to parenthood in favour of another path from the Land of If as a second choice. It’s not that I tried this and since I couldn’t have it that way, I settled for this way. First doesn’t always mean best and first doesn’t always mean right. It is simply the first thing we tried and when it didn’t work, we moved onto the next choice until we found the choice that worked for us. And it is similar to dating in that regard. I didn’t marry the first man I dated because he wasn’t the best and he wasn’t right for me. When I married the 80th person I dated, I wasn’t marrying the person who was in 80th place. I married the 80th person who only came after all the twists and turns in the road were passed and the line that connected us finally became untangled so we could find one another.

A and I were recently emailing about the idea of putting biological children on a pedestal or how to make non-biological children understand that they are not a second choice. This is the analogy that Josh and I have been exploring in the new song and cartoon that we’ve been working on for the past few nights:

When you go to your garden, by the time you walk back in the house, you’ve looked at all of the flowers. By default, one has to be the one you looked at first. But when you walk away from the garden, you enjoyed all the flowers and enjoyed the whole experience. It’s not that the first flower you saw was the one you loved best or became more important. It was simply the starting point that brought you the whole experience of enjoying the garden. And trying for those bio children–they were just the first flowers, the experience that brought you into family building. But the flowers you grow in your own garden, those are the ones that were meant to spring up for you two to nurture and love.

And again, the word “meant” does not in any way connote that Western idea that when it’s meant to happen, it will happen. But more the Buddhist idea of cause and effect and that we can’t necessarily know the cause until we see the effect. But that if a child comes to you–through whatever means–it was meant to come to you. It’s a purposeful act, not a random event, since every effect has a cause.

Just my opinion…

Once again, I’m participating in a Mother-Talk book tour, this time for the No-Cry Discipline Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It’s a parenting book, therefore, children are mentioned. But it’s a great parenting book that is actually helpful so when Mother-Talk decided to review this book, I jumped in to participate.

Elizabeth Pantley, in one word, rocks. She rocks hard-core. My children sleep through the night due to Elizabeth Pantley, so in my eyes, she is a goddess. Before I talk about this current book, let me take you in the way-back machine to a time when my children were still waking up several times a night. We were exhausted, but we never wanted to turn down a chance to give them a bottle because they were so small (even now, they’re below the 25th percentile for height and weight). But by the time they were 15 months, we were at our wits end because we were still waking several times a night. We read Weissbluth’s book, but it didn’t feel right for our particular kids. Our friends all talked about Ferber, but it also didn’t sit right with our family. Enter Elizabeth Pantley and the No-Cry Sleep Solution.

I’ll admit this here–Pantley’s solutions require work. They require a commitment to a philosophy that works if you remain committed to the goal. Sometimes people try something once and say an exasperated, “but it didn’t work.” And this is one of those times where you need to remain committed to the idea and keep doing it until it works. It may take one try or it may take two weeks. But her solutions actually fix the problem by teaching a new behaviour and this leads to fewer problems down the road. So…in my opinion…it’s well-worth the effort.

The No-Cry Discipline Solution is similar in tone to her sleep book. She presents a multitude of possibilities and continuously reminds the reader to choose the ones that fit their parenting style and stick with it. Being consistent and being present is more important than which ideas you choose to take. Simple ideas like giving children a choice whenever possible (even if it’s as simple as do you want to wear this pair of navy blue socks or this identical pair of navy blue socks…) goes a long way in getting a child to cooperate down the line.

I think the most important message parents can take away from this book is the idea that children are childish. Adults can’t always control their emotions, so how can we expect children to be more in control than adults? That said, the job of the parent is to teach their child how to come to terms with their emotions so they can become a self-sufficient adult. And Pantley gives you the tools–not just to fix problems as they arise, but to create a happy, healthy child so problems don’t arise in the first place.

I didn’t get a chance to write about this last week because of the book tour, but I chose the right waiting room chair at the new hematologist’s office. Right after I sat down, I realized why all the chairs were empty on that side of the room and why everyone stared at me when I took my seat. There was an elderly couple beside me and while it wasn’t clear who was the patient and who was simply accompanying the other to their appointment, the woman was loudly running through a monologue that stopped and started without warning.

“I look better now. I better look now. I now look better. I taller look now. I am taller. I look taller and I am taller and I look better and I am awful. I told him. I told him I was looking better. I look better all the time. Why did he say that to me? Why did he say that I look better? Why did he taller me? Why didn’t he taller me? I was looking tall at you.”

I used to volunteer at a hospital in the oncology unit and we had a woman who was losing the ability to remember words. Each time she lost a word, she replaced it with the word “depends.” So in the beginning, she would say things like, “pass me that depends, Melissa.” And by the end, her sentences were mostly comprised of the word “depends.” This woman in the waiting room reminded me of the depends woman and it felt like a little return to that woman in the hospital. I spent the whole morning searching for small returns in some pre-appointment mental foot dragging.

Before the appointment, I had gone to the library across the street from the hematologist’s office. It has this very distinct smell that I associate with a high school boyfriend (and this is coming from the woman who sat there sniffing her arms during her birthday to enjoy the memories of the bug spray). I sat in the library and considered writing him an email to ask if there was any possible way he could time travel from California to Maryland in the next half hour to accompany me on this appointment because I just wanted something familiar nearby. I mean, yes, I wanted Josh at the appointment. But what I also wanted in that moment was someone from long ago nearby. I wanted someone that was only associated with pre-baby-making. That high school boyfriend is definitely in the category of “babies were the last thing on my mind.”

In addition to taking comfort in anything that reminded me of anything that was from the pre-baby-making era, I was also looking for signs. Signs that we were on the right path. Or doing the right thing. Or making a good choice. There was a Kandinsky poster in the examination room and I took that as a good sign. I was a big Kandinsky fan back in high school and college. Less appreciative (but still enjoy) his work now. It felt like a small return to college. Which was mostly pre-baby. Babies seeped into conscious thought during my junior year. But you take what you can get. And poor Kandinsky spans both the pre-baby-thought and baby-thought years.

This is what I learned as we talked about blood: In addition to the MTHFR mutation, I have another problem–the PAI-1 4G/4G gene–which the other hematologist never told me. Both hematologists agree that I should go on Lovenox once I’m pregnant. My OB was wrong when he told me that Lovenox could be used beforehand to attain pregnancy if the clotting factor was the reason I wasn’t getting pregnant. Or–more accurately–they do give Lovenox as a last resort treatment sometimes for women before they receive a positive beta, but in my particular case, he doesn’t recommend it. He recommends that I return to the RE. At this point, he can’t really do anything to get my pregnant; only keep me pregnant.

He left the room and I wanted to have a good cry. I wanted to go backwards in time and when my new OB mentioned trying at home, hold my hand up and say, “let’s not give any false hope, okay?” I just felt sad that it’s like this. I’ll do the injections and I’ll go back to the RE and everything will be fine. But I’m sad that it’s like this and not like something else.

But I really did like the new hematologist and he was very kind and included me in the discussion rather than talking at me and praised my medical knowledge and investment in understanding my own treatments and problems. He drew more blood to rerun some tests and I’ll return to him in a few weeks to discuss that.

When I passed through the waiting room at the end of the appointment, the woman was standing in the center of the room with the man at her arm. And she was yelling the most profound thing I’ve heard all week: “you’ve got to help them to help.” And that’s just it. It isn’t helpful when you say the words that the person wants to hear. It’s help when you help me. And sometimes I don’t need kindness. Sometimes, even if I am prone to mentally time travel, I just need my doctor to help me remain in reality.

I am completely in love with a new children’s book that I found (which, coincidentally, goes hand-in-hand with the current selection for the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–sign up, sign up!): And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. I got blubbery in the library reading it while I stood in the children’s section. It the true story of two male penguins named Roy and Silo who live at the Central Park Zoo. They have been a couple since 1998 and they have a baby together named Tango. The egg came from another penguin couple named Betty and Porkey who also live at the zoo. When Betty produced two eggs, the zookeeper gave one to Roy and Silo because Betty and Porkey could only care for one chick at a time.

I love the last page: “At night the three penguins returned to their nest. There they snuggled together and, like all the other penguins in the penguin house, and all the other animals in the zoo, and all the families in the big city around them, they went to sleep.”

The book made me want to get in the car and drive up to New York and visit the penguins. Plus I love the illustrations.

What I don’t love? Having insurance premiums raised by almost $4000 this year and still not having any coverage for fertility drugs or treatments. That just sucks ass. But I’m not thinking about that right now. I’m focusing on cute penguin drawings. And the fact that I found so many books that I’ve wanted at the used bookstore yesterday. And because the used bookstore lady loves me so she gave me one of the books for free and knocked $3 off of another. I love walking out of a store with a huge bag of books for $10. And they were great books–Ayelet Waldman, Jennifer Weiner, Anne Lamott.

I’m focusing on blogs. I am not, I repeat NOT, focusing on those insurance premiums. Or how we’re ever going to pay an additional $4000 a year towards insurance that doesn’t cover fertility treatments.

Before we begin, in a convergence of blogdom and the real world, there will be a second meeting of the D.C. Bloggers on the 19th. You can find all the details at Looking for 2 Lines. I will be there–partying hard with the other stirrup queens. If you live in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia (or have the inclination to drive a long distance) come on over. Let LJ know that you’re coming so she knows how many for the table.

On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly has a great post this week about meeting with the adoption attorney. My favourite line has to be “When we sat down with her, I was thinking ‘Now, when I tell my kids about their adoption story, I’m going to have to start with explaining this weird little Chinese restaurant…’.” But why I really loved this post came closer to the end when Drama Queen made an analogy between organ donation and adoption: “It seems weird, I keep thinking of organ donation (isn’t that odd?). Someone has a great tragedy, which is death, which leads to other people being joyful and getting organs and hearts and getting to make a new life. I am excited about adoption and being able to be a mom and have children, but the birth mothers will be going through a very difficult time and very scary circumstances. I pray that I will be sensitive to the birth mother/father and their family, because this will be a very brave decision and a scary decision for them. I also must be willing to accept if we go down the road and someone choses not to give their baby up for adoption, even if it’s at the very last minute.” It was a very interesting connection that I never made before I read that post.

Steve at A Dad’s Journey Through International Adoption has discovered the real reason behind the current delay in Russian adoptions. “But you see, the concept is that this delay is actually meant to improve the waiting parents-to-be ability to be good parents. This whole thing is a clever ploy by the Russians to make us all better at being patient and thus better at being parents.” Perhaps now that their clever ruse has been blown out of the water, they can restart the program and hopefully Steve and Stefanie can become parents soon.

Ultimatejourney at Still Trying After All Those Pills is currently ensconced in her first dIUI cycle. I love this post for many of the thoughts including “Yes, of course I’m excited, but my head is in a completely different place than it was when we first started TTC. There’s nowhere for me to check my emotional baggage at the door. My mind is swirling with hope and doubt.” Please head over and wish her good luck with this cycle.

Lastly, I almost peed in my pants reading American Family this week, not only for their post about the difference in food offerings for their first child vs. their second child, but for M’s extremely amusing thoughts on G-d and where babies come from. Especially turning Jesus Christ into a girl and playing “Baby Jesus.” This is coming on the heels of the fact that I read this post right after having a long, heated debate with my son about the fact that bears do not wear diapers and he does not need a diaper for his teddy bear (especially when you call me upstairs two hours after you were supposed to be asleep). Tears were pouring down his face as he told us, “don’t fib! Bears do wear diapers. My bear needs a diaper. Mommies put diapers on baby bears.” And I, a grown woman, having to reason with him that bears (1) like to poop under trees (is this true? I don’t know. But it sounded right) and (2) have claws that preclude the ability to tie on diapers. That was the reasoning that finally got him to sleep: that bear claws would be too long and shred apart any diaper they tried to put on their babies. After a thoughtful silent moment, tears still streaming down his face, he stopped calling me a liar and agreed that bears probably don’t wear diapers. Just wait until he starts playing Baby Jesus… The entire time, all I could think about was Stephen Colbert’s image of the snarling bear from the Threatdown…

To finish back at books and penguins and Dan Savage’s adoption story, I love the book club because (1) it is a way for so many people who could never logistically come together in real life come together to discuss a book, (2) reading in a vacuum can be frustrating and instead you’re reading with the purpose to discuss it afterwards, and (3) I love book clubs, but it’s hard because of the logistic
s of planning face-to-face meeting time. With this book club, you participate whenever you can. You can even go back and read entries weeks later and comment then. Lori at Weebles Wobblog wrote a closing post about the book tour and sent out a dedication to all the other women marching in the Barren Bitches Book Brigade.